Trinity River Vision Funding

There ain't any.

Oh, besides YOU, dear taxpayers.

Read about it in the Fort Worth Business Press.  YOU can't afford to miss it.  Neither can your kids.

Meanwhile the costs mount and the availability of funds is more in question than ever. The total environmental remediation cost was estimated at $22 million back in 2004. Now the cost of cleaning up a single parcel is estimated to cost $42 million. That will make any developer think twice about digging a canal through known contaminated ground.

While flood control is a mechanism for obtaining federal funding, the reality is that the project substantially increases the potential of flooding downstream. That’s the reason for increasing valley storage area in Tarrant County. The flood potential for the 800 acre development area has always been close to zero.

 How long will this project take? Is the expected $1 billion tax base worth a $3 billion investment? Be assured that the $1 billion cost now will escalate to at least $3 billion over the next thirty to forty years of construction and development. This whole project rests on political manipulation of taxpayer dollars.

Remember a few of the Star-Telegram editorials and other articles? “Taking the long view – will North Central Texas have enough water for 13 million – that’s 13 million – people?” (7/10/05), Army Corps of Engineers – A flood of bad projects (5/28/06), “Earmarks crackdown puts squeeze on Trinity Uptown” (4/14/07), “Tax money flows to the river” (7/19/09), “Trinity Uptown plan is flawed” (8/02/09),

Is there a major company or political entity in this world (barring Fort Worth and Tarrant Regional Water District) that would hire [a] lawyer from the district Attorney’s office to head up a major development project of this magnitude and scope? Of course not. So why do we, as a community of generally visionary and accomplished business and political entities, support such a boondoggle?